The Inmates Are Running the Asylum: Why High-Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity
Imagine, at a terrifyingly aggressive rate, everything you regularly use is being equipped with computer technology. Think about your phone, cameras, cars-everything-being automated and programmed by people who in their rush to accept the many benefits of the silicon chip, have abdicated their responsibility to make these products easy to use. The Inmates Are Running the Asylum argues that the business executives who make the decisions to develop these products are not the ones in control of...
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Imagine, at a terrifyingly aggressive rate, everything you regularly use is being equipped with computer technology. Think about your phone, cameras, cars-everything-being automated and programmed by people who in their rush to accept the many benefits of the silicon chip, have abdicated their responsibility to make these products easy to use. The Inmates Are Running the Asylum argues that the business executives who make the decisions to develop these products are not the ones in control of the technology used to create them. Insightful and entertaining, The Inmates Are Running the Asylum uses the author's experiences in corporate America to illustrate how talented people continuously design bad software-based products and why we need technology to work the way average people think. Somewhere out there is a happy medium that makes these types of products both user and bottom-line friendly; this book discusses why we need to quickly find that medium.
ForewordPt. IComputer obliteracyCh. 1Riddles for the information age3Ch. 2Cognitive friction19Pt. IIIt costs you big timeCh. 3Wasting money41Ch. 4The dancing bear59Ch. 5Customer disloyalty71Pt. IIIEating soup with a forkCh. 6The inmates are running the asylum81Ch. 7Homo logicus93Ch. 8An obsolete culture105Pt. IVInteraction design is good businessCh. 9Designing for pleasure123Ch. 10Designing for power149Ch. 11Designing for people179Pt. VGetting back into the driver's seatCh. 12Desperately seeking usability203Ch. 13A managed process217Ch. 14Power and pleasure235Index245
\ From Barnes & NobleThe Barnes & Noble Review\ Software’s everywhere: in your PC, your car, your camera, your alarm clock. Why is so much of it so darned infuriating? Because the inmates, a.k.a. programmers, are running the asylum, says Alan Cooper. He thinks it’s about time we became far more sophisticated, far more conscious about designing our software -- not just coding and shipping it. \ The first edition of Cooper’s The Inmates Are Running the Asylum became an instant classic. It’s helped drive significant improvements in software usability -- among the fraction of business and technical leaders who’ve taken it to heart. Now the book’s returned, with a thoughtful new preface. If you missed it the first time, don’t miss it this time: Its message is more urgent and compelling than ever. Bill Camarda\ Bill Camarda is a consultant, writer, and web/multimedia content developer. His 15 books include Special Edition Using Word 2003 and Upgrading & Fixing Networks for Dummies, Second Edition.\ \ \
